One useful feature of Google Spreadsheets is the ability to access the data as JSON by using a particular feed URL. However, this is a bit fiddly to do, and the resulting JSON is pretty unreadable, with usable data buried deep inside objects.
This API connects to your spreadsheet and santizes the data, providing simple, readable JSON for you to use in your app.
- Run
npm install
- Run
node app
First, you must publish your spreadsheet to the web, using File -> Publish To Web
in your Google Spreadsheet.
You can then access your readable JSON API using the /api
endpoint. You can change this in app.js.
http://example.com/api?id=SPREADSHEET_ID&sheet=SHEET_NUMBER
This will update live with changes to the spreadsheet.
id (required): The ID of your document. This is the big long aplha-numeric code in the middle of your document URL.
sheet (optional): The number of the individual sheet you want to get data from. Your first sheet is 1, your second sheet is 2, etc. If no sheet is entered then 1 is the default.
q (optional): A simple query string. This is case insensitive and will add any row containing the string in any cell to the filtered result.
integers (optional - default: true): Setting 'integers' to false will return numbers as a string.
rows (optional - default: true): Setting 'rows' to false will return only column data.
columns (optional - default: true): Setting 'columns' to false will return only row data.
There are two sections to the returned data - Columns (containing the names of each column), and Rows (containing each row of data as an object.
{
columns: [
"Name",
"Age"
],
rows: [
{
name: "Nick",
age: "21"
},
{
name: "Chris ",
age: "27"
},
{
name: "Barry",
age: "67"
}
]
}